


Perhaps it was for the best

by mountainsbeyondmountains



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, One-Shot, Sansa's POV, season 7 speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 02:23:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10233593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountainsbeyondmountains/pseuds/mountainsbeyondmountains
Summary: No, they had not been close as children.





	

There are too many people in the great hall of Winterfell. When Sansa spins around, she sees the great lords of the north, snow melting in their beards, reeking of ale, hands on their steel, raucous roars. If she closes her eyes, the hall is full of ghosts. Father, Mother, the boys that Robb and Rickon once were, Lady, Grey Wind, Shaggydog. Sansa retreats to the edge of the room, leans her back against the solid stone wall. For a moment she is granted peace- then it ends, because she never has more than a moment of peace these days.

A hand on her arm. She shudders. She hates to be touched these days. The only instance that she did not recoil was when she and Jon embraced each other, when they reunited. There had been that moment of uncertainty between them. He wasn't sure she was real, she wasn't sure she deserved something so good at last. Silently he had asked, _may I?_ and she had whole heartedly replied yes by running into his arms without a moment's more hesitation. He had lifted her up and she'd known she would not have to rely solely on herself any longer. 

The hand belongs to Littlefinger. Who else? He's skulking in the shadows, never in the thick of things, never where he says he's going to be. 

"My lady,"  he begins. "Or is it princess, now that your brother is king?"

"Lady of Winterfell." Sansa is resolute about her birthright. After all, isn't that all Littlefinger ever wanted from her? The north? 

No. He wants the Vale, and the Riverlands as well. He wants her dead mother, whose clothes Sansa wears now. All Littlefinger need do is close his eyes and pretend. Sansa used to mock her younger sister for her grey-eyed, long-faced looks, but now what would Sansa give to be a proper daughter of the north?

"You could be more than simply Lady of Winterfell, if you only said the word, my love-"

"I am not your love."

"You could be queen."

"Never." Once, perhaps. Once her skin had been unblemished, though. Once she had had a whole family. Once she had never dreamed she might kill a man. 

"All these shifting titles. Queens and kings die so quickly, and new ones crowned twice as fast. Perhaps it is easiest if I call you only Sansa."

"You will respect me with my proper title, Lord Baelish." 

Sansa realizes the room is ringed with knights of the Vale, just as Bolton soldiers had surrounded the northern forces. Littlefinger is looking at the high table, where Jon sits so uneasily, and wears his crown with so little grace. The last boy to wear that crown had a direwolf's head sewn to his weary shoulders. Sansa recognizes the look Littlefinger is giving Jon. That same look had doomed Joffrey.

"You and your brother- pardon me, _half_ brother- were not close as children."

Sansa tilts her head in what could be interpreted as a no, or a yes. Let Littlefinger cast his own aspersions, as he would no matter what she said. After all, she's no good as a liar, is she? The winter winds will wear away all lies in time.

They weren't close as children. Sansa had always emulated her lady mother, and Catelyn Stark had abhorred Jon. Sansa had been too naive to fully comprehend, but she understood that quiet boy with eyes of mist was a blight on her father's honor. So she had turned up her chin, turned her shoulder to him while her siblings had accepted him so joyfully. No wonder he had preferred Robb and Arya and Bran and even Rickon. Sansa preferred them now to her old self. She longed to slap and shake her old self. She hated the stupid girl she had once been. She longed to be that girl again. 

Still, she had never truly hated Jon, because he had always been so courteous and sweet and nervous when they did speak. She did not remember them speaking all too frequently. Perhaps when they were very young, but otherwise, she was always heading around the corner just as he entered a room, and she was looking up as he ducked down when they passed in the halls, and people were always stepping between them. 

And truthfully, while Sansa is being truthful, perhaps it was for the best that they had not been "close" as children. That they had never been brother and sister in their hearts. 

For sometimes Sansa looks at Jon and she feels something reminiscent of how the songs used to make her feel. Anticipation and hope and a vulnerable fear, but mostly hope. He promised to protect her, and then he made good on those promises. Who else ever had? Not even Father could protect her when the hour came. But Jon- he went to war for her, he charged an army alone, he beat a man bloody and would not have stopped if she had not wanted him to. He asked nothing in return. Who else had ever expected that of her? There was no one like Jon. He was brave, and gentle, and strong. He was too good for the crown. Sansa wanted to protect him from it. To protect him from Littlefinger. To give him all he had given her, even though she doubted she was capable of even half that. 

Perhaps it was best they were not close as children, because she had not loved Robb like this, or Bran, or Rickon. She has never loved anyone like this. 

Sansa does not dwell on it. She has always been excellent at deluding herself, and there are so many other things to think about. But sometimes she sees Jon's silhouette as they sit by the fire, and she watches the flames kiss his face and she had never known flames could feel so gentle-

"Do you trust him?" Littlefinger asks.

"More than I trust you," Sansa replies before clutching her furs closer around her chest and moving to stand beside the king. 

**Author's Note:**

> everyone saying sansa will betray jon next season can, quite frankly, SUCK MY DICK


End file.
